


crossed wires

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-06 00:03:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 7.17 coda in which Sam and Dean miscommunicate and no damage whatsoever is done to their relationship or the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	crossed wires

**Author's Note:**

> [A discussion at lazy_daze's most excellent s7 retrospective](http://lazy-daze.livejournal.com/750444.html?thread=17136236#t17136236)
> 
> reminded me of the strange inability of Spn's writers to just say "head" when they mean "head." For some reason I felt this should be turned into low key, uneventful schmoop.

A hundred miles or so from the asylum they pull over and Sam crashes in the back seat.

He’d been feeling pretty sharp back when they were getting away from the hospital, like Cas injected him with angel caffeine while working his miracle cure. He’d found his clothes, dodged a confusing medley of doctors and demons, left his crazy and Cas and Meg all tangled together behind him, a knot of darkness. But now he should obviously sleep. He’s looking forward to it.

He’s out maybe three, four hours. That’s a bit of an anticlimax. When he wakes up there’s a crick in his neck from sleeping in the goddamn car – this one’s no smaller than the Impala, but it doesn’t fit his kinks -- and everything else is foggy and uncertain. Dean asks him how he’s doing and for a moment Sam doesn’t recognize his voice, he’s so used to Lucifer’s. 

“You want to stop somewhere?” says Dean, “Sleep in an actual bed?” But they’re still avoiding motels because of Leviathans and anyway Sam wants to keep going. His head’s so empty he needs the unspooling of the road to tether it, like a string on a balloon.

 

Dean keeps handing him things. Sam keeps taking a little too long to react. He’s waiting for the punchline. He’s maybe hungry but it seems like a long way from that to the chicken caesar salad he’s balancing on his lap. Dean hands him a fork. Sam looks at it for a minute, spears a piece of chicken, tries to decide if he wants to eat it. In the end he puts the fork down.

“Seriously, dude,” says Dean. “You sure you’re alright? Cas’s noodle fix is holding?”

Noodle fix. Back before things got so loud and then so quiet Sam was keeping a list, because linguistically Dean is fascinating. For any field of study, really. Dean’s a life project. Now the words meander sluggishly through the empty space in Sam’s brain, the place where Lucifer isn’t shouting. Noodle, gourd, melon. Dean has this thing about Sam’s head and food. At least Dean has yet to associate Sam’s scrambled brains with pie. That makes Sam a little less concerned about what will happen to him if Dean falls victim to a zombie apocalypse. 

“Sam?” says Dean. Sam realizes he’s been staring catatonically out the window, running synonyms. Grapefruit, walnut, custard.

“You know,” he tells Dean, “There’s such a thing as grapenut custard. I’m pretty sure.” It could be useful to Dean, a sort of composite term. 

Dean shakes his head. Sam’s just offered Dean the phrase of a lifetime, the phrase he’s been waiting for, but Dean’s turning it down. He takes the caesar salad off Sam’s lap, puts it back in its bag, starts the car.

“I’m finding a motel,” he says. “We’ll just pay cash.”

Which doesn’t make much sense, but Sam doesn’t have the energy to pursue Dean’s non sequiturs at the moment.

 

Sam opens his eyes sixteen hours later to a stripe of sunlight. The curtains aren’t quite closed. He realizes belatedly that Dean probably meant they were stopping so Sam could get some more sleep.

“I got you that grapenut pudding stuff you wanted,” says Dean when Sam comes out of the bathroom feeling almost human, “I found a place.” 

He makes it sound like finding a drug dealer, or maybe a shady business that imports illegal pets, frilled lizards or something. Sam’s probably run up enough credit with Dean by not dying that Dean would get him a frilled lizard. Sam pries open the lid of the styrofoam container Dean hands him. It’s full of a brownish yellowish substance. Sam pokes at it. Yes, that is the distinctive crunchy sogginess of grapenuts. It looks pretty gross.

“Uh,” he says, “Thanks.” 

His appetite is off from days of Lucifer’s maggot sandwiches, but somehow things have reconnected. The motel room is orange and hideous and real. He’s hungry, there’s food. He’s awake, there’s sun. He’s alive, there’s Dean. Dean watches like a hopeful, concerned hawk while Sam takes his first bite of weird breakfast dessert. It’s surprisingly good. 

“It’s good,” says Sam and adds, “Thanks,” again because Dean still looks like he’s expecting something. 

Dean’s shoulders straighten, a relieved, satisfied swagger to him Sam hasn’t seen in months. Years. 

“So things are OK?” he says, “You know, in your coconut?”

Dean’s a life project. Sam just got his life back to pursue it.

“My coconut’s good,” he says.


End file.
